Lebanon

In the aftermath of a reported explosion earlier today in the Iranian city of Isfahan that may have targeted a uranium enrichment plant, at least three katyusha rockets were fired from Lebanon into Israel's western Galilee overnight Monday.

Russia and China’s October 4 veto of a U.N. -Security Council resolution on Syria elicited a strong response from U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice. “The United States is outraged,” said Rice, “that this Council has utterly failed to address an urgent moral challenge and a growing threat to regional peace and security.” 

In some polls of Middle East opinion, Obama ranks lower than Bush. And now here come assessments from the region's intelligentsia. "Give Obama an ‘F’ in the Middle East," writes Lebanese journalist Michael Young, author of the award winning account of the Cedar Revolution, The Ghosts of Martyrs Square.  "What are the American priorities in the Middle East?" asks Young in Beirut's Daily Star, "No one knows."

Assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey D. Feltman told the House Committee on Foreign Affairs this afternoon that Syrian president Bashar al-Assad isn’t going to survive the 5-month long uprising against his regime. “He can’t win this,” said Feltman, head of the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs—which, barring any revisions or corrections coming from the White House, now seems to be the administration’s official assessment. Assad is going down.

At the end of a Washington Post op-ed criticizing John McCain for labeling Republicans who oppose intervention in the Libyan war “isolationists,” George Will writes (emphasis added):

Berlin—Many European reactions to the recent murders by radical Islamists of pro- Palestinian Israeli filmmaker Juliano Mer-Khamis and Italian activist Vittorio Arrigoni replicate the typical recurrence of the same: Shift the blame to Israel in an a priori fashion without delving into existing empirical evidence.

With the popular uprising in Syria completing its first month, protests against Bashar al-Assad’s regime have spread to encompass most Syrian regions and cities, including now the capital, Damascus. On Friday, April 15, crowds from surrounding suburbs swarmed the city, heading downtown to Abbasiyyin Square where the police fired on protesters and closed all roads and entrances leading toward the square. 

Reporters covering the ongoing popular revolt in Syria were recently introduced to a new term from the sociopolitical lexicon of the Levant—the shabbiha.

Michael J. Totten has just published The Road to Fatima Gate: The Beirut Spring, the Rise of Hezbollah, and the Iranian War Against Israel. From Lee Smith's blurb, on the back of the book:

Beirut 

For the last several days, Syrian workers have gathered in front of their embassy here to demonstrate on behalf of the embattled regime in Damascus. Pity those poor wage laborers who have no choice but to wave the flag, lest they lose the privilege that entitles them to piece together a measly living in a country where they’re largely condemned.

Beirut

The Lebanese seem to be keeping mum after Bashar al-Assad’s speech this afternoon. Sure, there are no doubt plenty of opinions to go around, but why bring unnecessary attention to Lebanon’s own problems?

Beirut